


(do not ask) the price I pay

by FindingZ



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, BAMF John, Gen, Human Sacrifice, Loneliness, M/M, Sadstuck, The Veil, attempted sacrifice, spacetime shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:30:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3945508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FindingZ/pseuds/FindingZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They leave your guardian alive, weeping in the corner. You think about saying something - consolations? Expressions of gratitude for all they've done for you? - but don't, staring at your bare feet as you're led away. The snow is almost warm, pricking at your skin.</p><p>(you know what will happen to you)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Winter's Breath](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/115630) by Gear_King, Sam, & Ray-Ray. 



> Do not ask the price I pay  
> I must live with my quiet rage  
> Tame the ghosts in my head  
> That run wild and wish me dead  
> ~ Mumford & Sons, "Lovers' Eyes"

 

You don't fight when they come for you. They kick at the door with studded boots just after midday and shout, _give us the child - we'll burn the place if you don't!_

 

Your guardian peeps through the curtains. Pales. _They have torches, Karkat._

 

You open the door.

 

They leave your guardian alive, weeping in the corner. You think about saying something - consolations? Expressions of gratitude for all they've done for you? - but don't, staring at your bare feet as you're led away. The snow is almost warm, pricking at your skin.

 

They keep you in the town hall, in the cell meant for murderers but more often used for those recovering from too much drink. The window lets in the snow and the stone floor stiffens your muscles until you cry out at the slightest movement. You aren't so much cold as sluggish. Thick-witted. It takes you longer to form a sentence in your mind, even longer to say it aloud. No one listens, anyway - who would? You spend your time sleeping with your ear pressed up against the crack under the door, just in case somebody approaches and you need to know they're there.

 

You know what will happen to you.

 

When they come for you again, you don't know how much time has passed - know only that you feel carved out from hunger, that your body is vibrating from exhaustion. They tell you to move, and you do. Present your wrists for the chains, even, aren't you a model citizen. They chain your ankles too, but you don't help them then.

               

They lead you up the mountain, escorted by a party of seven who are bundled up in every material that could be spared. You are the eighth, prodded along, rags falling off of your shoulders (they took your clothing, gave you scraps - said yours would be given to a better cause). The manacles freeze to your skin and burn with pain of a sort you've never felt before. You leave red footprints. No one talks to you, so you talk to yourself to keep your mind warm.

 

They loop the excess lengths of chain around a tree trunk and leave you there, walking some distance away to stamp out careful patterns in the snow. Someone takes a knife to the flesh of your upper arm and catches the blood in a small container. You don't feel the incision, but you can see the glint of bone underneath. Even your blood is sluggish - it's too cold to bleed out here (but the snow turns red around you anyway).

 

The sun is going down when they detach you. Your legs will not unbend from kneeling for so long, so they drag you to the center of their circle where they've pounded two metal stakes into the ground. You're pushed down and secured between them, sprawled out on your belly, the back of your neck exposed. They start to sing, hoarse voices ringing in your ears.

 

_We call upon the living days, whose Guardian_

_is green and memories, to usher in_

_those  blazing days, whose Guardian_

_is smoke and ash. Beseech of Him to usher in_

_the Guardian of the changing days,_

_and for Her to call_

_the dying days, whose Guardian_

_is winter's breath._

_We call upon the living days,_

_the blazing and the changing days,_

_to call upon the dying days,_

_and free us from the Reaper._

Your mind fades. You don't hear the rest of the song - you are starting to feel _warm_ , like you're melting from the marrow out. Are you dying? Of course you're dying.  You close your eyes.

 

Someone is speaking to you, or perhaps a lot of someones. Everything echoes.

_Open your eyes_.

 

You open your eyes.

 

The snow has been trampled, tracks leading off in all directions. The container of blood lies half-empty near you.  The sun has gone down. Your breath is wet and sickly. You are alone.

               

You open your eyes again. A boy is floating, cross legged, at your side, chin in his palm. His eyes are very blue.

_You're my offering?_ He tilts his head. _You're rather skinny._

 

He doesn't look like the scriptures. You've heard the tales from your childhood and the accounts of the Chosen, heard people speak of a whirlwind with a voice like ice cracking, or a bolt of blue lightning who laughs like a child.

 

He looks human, though, looks like the friends you used to play with by the river, before they pulled back your gums to bare your fangs and the wind whisked the hat off your head.

_They called you a devil-child. Do you have a name?_

_It's Karkat,_ you say. Is he going to kill you? You hope he kills you before the wolves find you. _I don't want your mercy_.

 

 _Who spoke of mercy?_ He turns you over onto your back, moving so he's floating above you, stretched leisurely over your body, inches from making contact. _Even if I were to offer it, you would refuse? You would refuse a god's mercy, Karkat?_

_Yes._

 

His body steams, giving off vapors into the night. His edges are undefined, like you would disappear into him if you brushed his skin.

               

W _hy?_ Eyebrows raised - you have confused a god. Oh, how your friends would laugh. _Do you_ want _to die?_

_To save them. My life for theirs._ (for Sollux, Terezi, Kanaya, your guardian - an easy trade)

_What makes you think_ one _life would save all of theirs? Really, Karkat, that's quite arrogant of you_.

 

Your heart stops; your breathing stutters. He doesn't blink when you shout, _take it, I give it willingly!_ The noise scatters wildlife creeping in the underbrush. The blue boy, Heir of the Cold Winters, hums.

_Not of free will - of obligation. You're lonely._

_You are too, you_ must _be,_ you spit back. _You're the embodiment of death, everyone fears you. It makes no difference, please -_

 

(staring down a god, teeth bared, you ought to be killed for your disrespect. You will be soon, you know you will. You have to be)

_You are a_ child _. They brought you into the woods to die._ He brings his knees to his chest and hugs them, still perched on the air over your lower ribs. _Begging to die...just look at you, Karkat._

_Just, just, take my_ life _, will you, and spare the others! End this winter!_ You hiss, pulling against the chains on your wrist like you want to hurt him. You don't, and he can see that, but the gesture is there.

_The others, the others, it's all about the others, isn't it? Even for the others. You're so very unhappy, Karkat._

_Just - !_ Why won't he just - ?

_They give me a bound child - a_ crying _child, just look at you - to kill so I will capture the seasonal winds and spare them; now, Karkat, doesn't that sound unfair to you?_

 

He touches his forehead to yours, a bright star of warmth through your mind - he's giving off heat, so much heat, and it makes your breathing even out. _I will set you free, Karkat, and I_ will _harness the winds, if it would make you happy. You may return to your friends._

_They'll just do this again._ Hot ice slides down your cheeks. _When the spring doesn't come soon enough or the summer burns their crops or the autumn kills them too quickly, they'll just do this_ again _, please!_

_You're free, Karkat,_ he says, and your chains shatter into fragments that litter the ground around you. You struggle to sit up - to protest, to touch him - and he helps you, a breeze pushing you upright. _I don't perform favors at the cost of lives. None of us do - that's a human invention. Really, do you think I endorse_ murder _, Karkat?_

 

You wrap your arms around yourself and look away. He is going to leave you here in the dark with the wolves and the crowds of people with torches and pitchforks, and you will be known as the devil-spawn who was so evil even the gods wouldn't touch him.

_I'll hold off the winds, Karkat, but you're going to come with me,_ he says. His hand slides up your arm, his skin pliant and soft and human. He's not warm, though his touch generates warmth within you.

_Come with...?_ You don't understand. He smiles, just a little, but oh, the snow seems to melt around you and the moon shines just that much brighter at the sight of it.

_Maybe I'm lonely after all._

 

 


	2. Nothingspace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is turning out to be an absolute beast, so I'm posting a backlog of chapters while I work on the last two. Hope you enjoy! :)

 

You don't know where you are, and he tells you, _you aren't really anywhere. This is my home, Karkat - we call it the Veil._

_We?_

_The rest of us._

_How many of you are there?_

_Four. They aren't here, though. It's just me._

 

_Oh._

 

He cleans the blood from you with skin-warm water and bandages the lacerations on your arms and legs. Kisses your bruises, which confuses you, and you tell him so.

 

_Has nobody ever tended your injuries?_ He asks. You don't react - why would anyone put their mouth on a wound? - and something comes over him, an expression you don't recognize. He tilts his head down and wraps the next bandage tighter than the ones before it.

               

He doesn't say anything about your appearance. You see his eyes drift over your horns every now and again, like he was aiming for direct eye contact but missed, but when you try to stare him down he just blinks serenely like you aren't used as a cautionary tale for small children. When you can't take it anymore and confront him, all hot air and false bravado, demanding to know why he's pretending you're _human_ , why he's acting like you're not different, not a _mutant,_  he just smiles like you've said something funny. Says, _I like your horns, actually.  I think they look rather fetching._

 

(you don't know how to respond to that so you end up deflating in front of him while he chuckles at you)

 

(it's like when he looks at you he looks at _you_ and not your deformed body. It's like your horns and your fangs and the way your fingernails grow too fast and too sharp to be normal - like none of that matters)

 

(the thought makes your throat close up)

               

 

He lets you wander freely - _this is your home too, now -_ and you count forty-one rooms, with little variance between them. They seem to stretch out in a predictable pattern, with each room connected to the others on at least two sides. It's a neat grid, eight rooms wide and five rooms long, with the addition of one room, the forty-first, as the start of a new row. The walls and floors and ceilings of each one are all made of something that feels like stone but is warm to the touch, and when you lie on it, it seems to mold to your body. You could sleep on the floor comfortably with no aches and pains the next morning. Everything is painted white. There are no windows or lamps to be seen, but the whole space is light when you're awake and dark when you become tired.

 

Three of the rooms are not empty. One of them contains a small circular table with four chairs surrounding it (he adds a fifth upon your arrival). Another is initially empty when you walk into it, so you turn your back to leave, but he taps your shoulder and points to a bed that is shimmering into existence before your very eyes.

 

_Where did it come from?_ You ask.

 

He raises and lowers his shoulders. _Alchemy._

 

The third room contains a small bed not unlike the one that abruptly materialized for you, with a worn blue coverlet spread neatly over the top. In the corner of the room is a messy pile of assorted items - among them, you see a colorful hammer and a stuffed rabbit, like the toys of your childhood. You stare at them for a moment.

 

_Do you have a name?_ You ask him. He pauses and turns to look at you.

 

_It's John._

(his eyes are very sad)

 

 

The novelty wears off on the second night. Your room is connected to John's by nothing more than a thin white door with a glass knob, and you tuck your head into your arms and try to cry as quietly as you can. The wounds on your wrists and ankles from the manacles sting and itch and you wish you knew why you feel so sad about leaving a community that hated you so wholeheartedly. Your guardian had no genetic relations to you, your friends were nothing more than acquaintances, and all the rest stood up and demanded your sacrifice in booming voices. You should be overjoyed, you tell yourself. You should be happy.

 

(this doesn't stop you from feeling dizzy with grief)

 

 

John is waiting outside your door when you wake up , seizing both of your hands when you emerge. _I want to show you something._

 

He leads you to the forty-first room, the one that doesn't fit with the others. It has one narrow door with the same glass doorknob as the one in your room, connecting it to the rest of the grid, but that is all. Like the majority of the others, it is completely empty.

 

 He walks you up to the wall opposite the door and releases you to spin around and regard the blank space. _I can show you how to create things, if you like._                 

 

_Create things?_

 

He holds his hand out to you, palm up. _From nowhere. Like so._

 

The air over his hand ripples, twists, and bends. An apple appears, and he hands it to you. _You see? I can show you._ He pushes the apple towards you. _Taste it._

 

You do. It's so sweet that you cringe, but suddenly you're very, very hungry. You devour the entire thing in seconds and chase the juice that rolls down your wrist.

 

_Good, huh? You'll need this._ He holds out a small metal device with right angles in strange places. _It's an alchemiter. A mini one, anyway. You can add on rooms or fill them with things, if you like._ He smiles a little. _I guess this place_ could _use a makeover._

 

_You made this_ , you toss a hand out at the empty space, _with this?_ Such a tiny little thing. When you take it from his hands, you almost drop it. It's much, much heavier than it looks. _How?_

_Not with that one, no. I have...my own._

 

_Where?_  

 

For a moment, John's eyes blaze an even deeper blue, almost black. Something goes cold in your sternum at the raw power of it. _Within me._

_How do I...?_   You turn it over in your hands. His eyes burn brighter and he melts into nothing with a small smile. The door bangs open and then shut and you hear air whooshing through the next room.

_Oh, no, you'll have to figure it out yourself - that's half the fun!_

 

The lights go dark and come on again before you manage to make something happen with the thing, and several times you are fully prepared to kick it across the room. You only just stop yourself. He _gave_ it to you. You can't remember if you've ever gotten a gift in your life, let alone one from a god. When the urge to give up and try to destroy it hits you, you grip it tightly and breathe, in-one-two-three, out-one-two-three. It never leaves your hand.

 

You don't attempt to leave the room. He gave you a task, after all, and he seemed eager for you to understand it, so you stay put. You curl up on the floor in the corner when the lights go out, and wake up to find a blanket over you and a pillow under your head. You sit up and continue to fiddle.

 

You have never been exposed to anything like this. Sollux spoke many times of all the technology he possessed, but you'd never put your hands on any of it. As far as you can tell, there are no surfaces on the device that draw your fingers and invite a push or a pull - the surfaces are smooth, without indentations or cracks. The shape isn't anything you recognize. It is simply a _thing_.

               

You're propped up against the wall with it on your lap, dozing a little, when it happens. Hunger, you have discovered, does not exist here unless you actively think about food. Your stomach is growling, and you think about the apple John conjured up for you. It was the sweetest thing you've ever eaten. Maybe if you asked him nicely, he'd conjure another one? Just so you could memorize the taste properly this time...

 

The alchemiter vibrates, lets off a high-pitched hum like a young cat, and an apple falls into your lap.

 

You hold your breath and squeeze your eyes shut. The apple is still there when you open them again. It tastes exactly like the other one. You devour it, leaving nothing to waste but the seeds, which you line up in a neat row on the floor next to you. When you grip the alchemiter next, you try and emulate what you had been thinking before. Except you hadn't been thinking, you had been _remembering..._

 

Another apple appears in your palm. You inspect the skin for blemishes, and, finding none, go to seek out John.

 

 

When you don't find him immediately, you try to squash the panic that wells up in you like acid. Of course he's here, you know he is. Maybe he just wants you to try extra hard to find him.

_Look up._

 

You look up. He's lying on the ceiling, a book in his hand. He smiles down at you, and you try to hide the relief that colors your mind. Wordlessly, you hold out the apple.

 

He drifts down to take it from you and turns it over in his hands. The look of pride on his face makes your stomach clench. You try to give him back the alchemiter, but he pushes your hand away and tells you to keep it.

 

 

You protest when he changes your bandages later that evening, batting at his reaching hands (not too hard), insisting that you can do it yourself just fine. He ignores you and sits you down at the table, conjuring a basin of warm water and strips of soft white cloth for him to work with. You don't understand his expression, so you cast your eyes away while he works. The wounds are ugly, making your stomach turn, but he shows no sign of disgust.

               

When you dream that night, you see yourself in that forty-first room with the alchemiter clutched in your fist. Another door appears. Opening it, you are hit with a literal wave of color - vivid blues and greens,  the brightest reds, and the softest purples. The room is filling up, you are about to drown, and then -

 

You wake gasping, heart beating like a rabbit's. The alchemiter is vibrating under your pillow. Every surface of your room is awash with the same colors as those in your dreams. They drip down your walls, coat your ceiling, stain the wooden frame of your bed, pool and swirl across the floor. You stretch out a trembling hand, but your skin is as pale and unremarkable as ever.  

 

You spend the rest of the night fitfully and don't leave your room once the lights come back on. You can hear soft footfalls echoing through the walls, but can't precisely pinpoint John's location. You curl into a ball on your side and watch the alchemiter warily, like it may grow fangs sharper than yours and attack you. You fall back into a doze.

 

When you rouse yourself again, the colors haven't dulled in the slightest. You reach out a hand to touch the wall next to your bed. It doesn't feel like paint - it feels like cool, cool metal, or perhaps warm, sanded wood. You did this while you were _dreaming_.

 

You gingerly place the alchemiter in the far corner of the room and leave, shutting the door firmly behind you.

 

You don't attempt to use alchemy again for a few days. John asks if you can read, and you lie out of habit before you can stop yourself. He gives you a small pile of books nonetheless, sliding them across the table towards you. You open them with trembling fingers. Kanaya had had dozens of books, had taught you to read without questioning why you, at eleven, had not learned to read or write anything besides your name. You can still remember many of her novels word for word.

 

The stories John gives you are about daring adventurers charting unknown territory and battling monsters, about noble pirates and tyrannical kings and queens. The lights dim before you finish the first one, and when John returns to clean your wounds you hold out one arm at a time, holding the book open with the other. You see him smiling in your peripheral vision.

               

 

One night, you dream you are freefalling through space, hurtling towards a red ocean that stretches out as far as the eye can see. You're screaming at the same pitch as the wind that howls in your ears, you're sobbing, you're pleading - you're going to _die_ , you're going to be swallowed whole, going to be reduced to a smear on the fabric of the cosmos -

_Karkat._

 

You wake up sobbing. John is sitting cross-legged on the bed next to you, holding your hand. His eyes are closed.  He says nothing as you swipe your tears away frantically and hide your face in your arm. You space each breath four heartbeats apart and fist a hand in the sheets.

_It was just a dream,_ you say, mostly to yourself. He nods, though, like you've said something profound.

_Perhaps. But you're frightened, which makes it real enough. Do you think you can sleep after this?_

 

You don't trust yourself to speak.

_Do you want me to leave?_ His eyes are still closed.

 

Your mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He squeezes your hand.

_Do you want me to stay?_

_Yes_ , you say, before you consciously think the word.

 

He opens his eyes, and his smile is bright enough to sear the red from behind your eyes. He shifts, stretches out beside you on his back, and folds his hands neatly over his abdomen.

_I like what you've done to the place,_ he murmurs, still smiling. _It's so bright in here. So...alive._

 

You tell him you dreamt them into existence, that you had been drowning in the colors that he sees before him. You start to tell him about the room, the empty room that was bursting at the seams with wave after wave, but the air seems to twist and bend before your eyes and you are so very tired...

 

The walls and ceiling have returned to normal when the lights come back on, but the floor is a familiar shade of blue. Perfect white footprints lead away from your bed and up to the door to John's room. You are alone.

 

The days pass. You discover that you can alchemize copies of Kanaya's books if you think about them hard enough, and it isn't until one of the teetering piles collapses on you while you are sleeping one night that John suggests you alchemize a shelf.

_And besides,_ he adds, _Jade will be here any day now. I was thinking of neatening up anyhow._

 

Your first thought is that apart from the odds and ends in his room, John appears to own next to nothing - _you_ are the reason this place needs "neatening up." You feel guilty, but his face holds no ill will.

 

Your second thought is, _who's Jade?_

_A very dear friend._

_...Another god?_

_I'm sure you'll like her. I'm glad you came in time to meet her._

_In time?_

_It's complicated_.

 

Complicated enough that he won't elaborate no matter how much you dare to pester him about it, so you reluctantly back off. He doesn't seem angry about your incessant nagging, though, so you end up sitting on the threshold of the door between your rooms,  chattering with him while trying to get the dimensions of the bookshelf you have in mind correct. Once you alchemize something you can't make it un-create itself, but John can, and so eventually you have to ask him to get rid of all the failed prototypes that pile up in your space. You get the satisfactory dimensions eventually, though, and he helps you shelve your books alphabetically, humming a little song you don't recognize as he goes.

               

_Are you lonely?_ He asks you then, and for a moment you don't know how to breathe. _I mean,_ he continues, _do you want to leave? I, I know that this wasn't what you anticipated when you -_

_No!_

 

The volume of your own voice makes you cringe. John blinks, and smiles at you, all sweet and happy in a way that shouldn't be allowed.

_I'm glad._

 


	3. Greenery

 

You meet Jade. You wake up one morning to a laugh you don't recognize, and when you creep cautiously from your room to the main one, you find a strange woman sitting at the table opposite John.

_You must be Karkat!_

 

Blinking, you register hands on your upper arms and the woman's face inches away from yours. Your brain catches up, and you realize she had winked out of existence and reappeared directly in front of you. Her hair is very dark and her teeth are very white.

_...Jade?_ You don't know what else to call her.

 

She beams and looks very much like John in the act. _Yes! It's a pleasure to meet you at last._ She grips both your hands in hers and tugs you towards the table.

 

At last?

 

John is laughing softly. You sit next to him and rest your feet on the rungs of the chair. Jade peers over at you through a nest of hair.

_Tell me all about yourself._

_About...myself?_ You can't help the way your shoulders hunch ever so slightly. _There's not a lot to say._

_Of course there is. I can see it in you, plain as day. You're here, aren't you?_

_He is!_ John quips. His arm brushes yours. _He's just humble is all._

 

They both smile at each other like they're sharing a private joke.

_So Karkat! Why don't you show me what you can do with alchemy?_

               

 

You feel silly "showing" Jade your passable skill with the alchemiter, but John insists, even when you protest. Jade just smiles as the two of you bicker, and when John inevitably wears you down, she touches you on the forehead and you're suddenly in the room you first learned to alchemize in.

_You can...teleport?_ You ask her. _Is that the right word?_ You read it in a book, a fantastical tale set in the mysterious expanse of the stars overheard.

 

She shrugs, pushing her hair away from her face and surveying the room. _Perhaps. I've never bothered to name it._

_No?_

 

She's pacing the length of the opposite wall with her palms out and running along its surface. _Can I ask you a question, Karkat?_

 

_Yes...?_

_Do you intend to stay here? For as long as you live, even?_ She turns her back to you and plants both hands flat against the wall, leaning in until her nose is almost brushing it. _I have to ask you this, you know, given John's personality and...the nature of your position. After you answer we can proceed to being the best of friends, of course!_ There's a smile in her voice but the side of her face is shadowed.

 

It's painfully clear how carefully you have to phrase your answer.

_I...um..._

_Take your time,_ she says quietly. _I'd rather have an honest answer than a quick one._

_It might be a little while,_ you tell her, and try not to wring your hands under her gaze.

 

(it's not that you want to leave, you don't, you _don't_ , but when she says _spend your entire life here_ something grips your breastbone and makes your vision fuzzy, even though John asked you a similar question not long ago. You don't want to leave, but John, John will want you to leave eventually, won't he? He'll become tired of you, you with your loud voice and sharp teeth. He will, he will)

 

(you would spend your whole life here, if John would let you. Would he let you?)

 

Her voice is surprisingly soft. _That's fine. Just be sure to come up with an answer before I leave, yes? You have a few days._ There's a gentle touch on your shoulder, and you smell wet earth and your ears ring like singing birds, and you're back at the table and John is speaking to Jade, who has her chair tilted onto the back two legs as casual as you please.

_...was fast! I take it you had an ulterior motive for catching him alone? Why Jade, I'm shocked._ He presses his hands over his heart and makes a face. You can't help but stare (he looks so _alive_ ). Jade waves her hand.

_I had to check a few things! Don't even think about worrying your pretty little head, brother mine._

_Brother?_ You interrupt, and blush with embarrassment. _I mean, I'm sorry  -_

_Jade is my sister. Essentially. It's rather complicated._

 You frown a little. _You say everything is complicated_.

_Because everything is! The whole universe is a complicated mess, Karkat - there is never a simple answer for anything._

 

Jade is smiling to herself, and John looks like he won't say another word about it, so you clamp your mouth shut and let yourself be absorbed into their chatter as the hours tick by.

               

 

Jade gets a room of her own, branching out from the other side of John's. The quick glimpse you get of it when you walk by has it filled with plants of all sorts, growing from every available surface. Thick carpets of grass cover the walls and ceiling, low lying bushes of flowers fill up the corners, and, most noticeably, both doors (the one to the main room and the other to John's) are missing, replaced instead with thick, green, intertwining vines that hang over the openings like curtains.

               

In the center of the room there is, for lack of a better word, a _mass_ of greenery piled up into a vaguely bed shaped mound. The whole room smells like rain. You think of how different it is from John's room, how Jade came in and made herself at home like she was meant to be here, how her presence is dripping from the walls like runoff from a roof. How John's space is merely a place for him to exist in, rather than a space he can call his own.

 

You think about John in the snow that day (how long ago? Feels like centuries), standing over you, eyes downcast, _maybe I'm lonely too,_ and make yourself walk away quickly, before you can stare for too long.

 

 

Time goes by much more quickly when Jade is present. You almost want to study it, to alchemize one of the massive clocks Kanaya had in her living room and use it to count the space in between seconds to see if your life does indeed slip by faster when Jade is breathing the same air as you. You can tell John feels the same way, though he doesn't say it - he's more animated when she's around, talking faster and bouncing from room to room like a child just learning to run. He laughs more. He acts like someone just waking up from a dream and stumbling into the light of a new day. For some reason you're inexplicably jealous of Jade for being able make him so happy.

 

(of course you don't tell either of them that, or even let yourself think it for too long. You're a guest, you tell yourself firmly, and should behave as such. You make a note to yourself to stand up taller and stop pestering him for so many books in the future, so you can stay in his good graces)

 

( _for as long as you live_ , she said. The implications riding on the back of that sentence steal your breath away. You are starting to hope you live a very long time)

 

 

Jade is fascinated by your books. She demands to peruse your collection, exclaiming, _you've got some I don't have!_ When you bring her to your room, she plunks herself down (so gracefully - how does she do it?) in front of the shelf and begins running her hands over the spines. Your bizarre, inappropriate jealousy burns away a little and you sit down next to her when she asks you how you came to remember this or that book.

 

She likes listening to you talk about "life outside." You don't particularly like to (sometimes thinking about the people you knew makes your eyes itch and your breath coat the insides of your lungs like a sticky paste), but she enjoys it, so you do your best to dig up everything you can remember about the smallest details, about how Sollux was born with a problem with the muscles in his eyes and saw double  until he got special glasses that made you nauseous when you tried them on, how Vriska and Terezi were best friends until they weren't, how Kanaya got along with everyone and let you sleep over at her house sometimes. You tell her about what the town wanted to do with you.

 

(if you have to babble some inane excuse for leaving the room every hour or so, she doesn't comment. When that happens, you race to the forty-first room and press your head against the wall until your heart calms down. When you can speak without your voice trembling, you scrub the hair from your face and go back to rejoin her)

 

She doesn't stay long. One morning, you find her in the main room hugging John and crying, suppressed little sobs that are awful to listen to. John is staring at the wall over her shoulder, eyes blank. His lips are moving, whispering things to her that you can't hear.

 

It's such a private scene that you feel yourself blushing and turning to scuttle away but John croaks out a _wait, Karkat,_ that brings you to a halt. You peek back over your shoulder at him. He beckons, still wrapped in the embrace. _C'mere and say goodbye. She won't be back until next year._

 

Jade smells like cold, clean air when she hugs you. You hug back by instinct, and it's precisely six seconds before she pulls back and holds you at arm's length, looking at you intently.

_Did you come up with an answer for me?_

 

 

(yes, _yes_ , you'll stay, of course you'll stay, you'll stay until you can't any longer, until you have to leave because John's eyes cloud over with irritation every time they land on you. You'll stay - why didn't you answer her immediately? You knew your answer the moment she asked you the question)

_To which of my questions is that an answer to?_

 

You swear you heard birds singing when she smiles. _Thank you,_ she whispers, and pulls you in for another hug. _He needs someone like you._

 

You don't know how to answer that, so you say nothing. There's a rush of wind, and she disappears from your arms.

 

John's face is closed. _Glad you got to meet her,_ he says briskly, and turns his back to you as he leaves. You think he's about to cry.

               

(when you were first educated, before your secret got out and you were still allowed in the school building, you'd been taught which gods cried and which ones hadn't shed a tear for thousands of years. Which ones would spare you if you strung together pretty, pleading sentences and which ones would turn you to ash for the slightest mistake in etiquette. The God of Winter's Breath, it was written, had a heart as frozen and unyielding as the glaciers themselves, and was as unforgiving as the winds he controlled. Everyone knew that. He was the center of all the frightening tales you and your friends would hear as a child. He walked hand in hand with death, you were told. _Give him as wide a berth as you would the Reaper himself, children. Fear him as you would your own demise_ )

               

 

You don't see John for two whole days. The connecting door to his room has fused with the rest of the wall, and when you press your ear to it you hear repetitive crashing noises and what sounds like choked gasps. You sit in your room and listen to him rage and wonder how he came into being. You wonder if gods have families. How is a god born? 

               

(Jade's room has reverted back to its empty, blank state. Whenever John quiets down for a short while, you creep to her space and sit on the floor where her bed was. No matter how hard you strain, you cannot catch even the slightest whiff that she was ever there in the first place)

 

In the last hours of light on the second day, you hear John's voice in your ear, telling you to _come here, please._ The door has unstuck itself, and you open it barely a hair's width and peek inside.

 

He's floating upside down, sitting cross legged on the ceiling above his bed. All his possessions crowd the airspace around him, floating lazily in a slow orbit around the room. The hammer drifts past your nose when you enter, making you flinch in surprise.

 

He doesn't look at you. _Sit._

 

You sit directly underneath him, craning your neck backwards at a painful angle to look up at him.

 

You hear him sigh. _I suppose Jade conveniently forgot to explain what I asked her to, hm?_

_...Yes?_ You shift around, trying to find a way to look up at him without toppling backwards off the bed.

_If you're still interested in hearing the story,_ he says, _I'll tell you._

 

You tell him of course, and he gives a tiny upside down smile that makes you feel strangely accomplished.

_It's about a game,_ he begins, _and it's_ _rather complicated. You might want to make yourself comfortable._

 

 


	4. The Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man this fic is longer than I intended it to be. I'm not sure if I want to split the last chapter up into two parts or not, but I guess we'll see soon enough!

He's older than the universe, he tells you. Much, much older. _Jesus, I'm so old, Karkat_ , he says.He says he played a game with three of his friends, and _it was supposed to be just a game, just a_ game _, just...something to pass the time._ He says he was thirteen years old.

               

_How old are you now?_ You want to know.

               

He says he's stopped counting. _Thousands of years, at least. Does it matter?_

               

You think it does, but he clearly doesn't want to think about it (it's written all over his face, bleeding through his pores), so you gesture for him to continue.

               

He says that the reward for winning was a universe to call one's own ( _a whole_ universe _, Karkat. I couldn't even fathom what that meant at the time, I just thought - thought I'd be able to live how I liked with the people I loved the most. A whole_ universe _to do with as we pleased!)_ , immortality, and abilities that no human had ever possessed. _Yes, Karkat,_ he says, and drifts down a foot or so towards you, still upside down, _I was human once. Can you believe that?_ You say you can't, and he nods solemnly. _I almost can't either._

               

He talks about his three friends, about Jade his almost-sister ( _I_ made _her, I made all four of us from primordial slime - us, and our families too. My father was technically my half-brother, isn't that bizarre? And he had no idea..._ ), and about Dave and Rose, who are _rather strange in their own right, but the best people I've ever met._

               

(he goes quiet here, ducking his chin to his chest and tugging at his sleeves)

               

He tells you how they won, him and his friends, and how they  watched the universe they'd earned burst into existence  - _your universe, to be precise. We created it from next to nothing. We hadn't the slightest idea what we were doing, but it worked out just fine in the end. We couldn't believe it when it was done and nothing had gone wrong_.

               

His face tells you the direction his story is going in.

               

_What_ did _go wrong, then?_

               

_Well, nothing. It all panned out as it was supposed to. As it was written. We just didn't get the ending we expected we would._

               

_What ending was that?_  

               

_We could rule over our universe_ , John says, and here his voice quavers like a plucked string (he's crying and trying to hide it, trying to steady his voice in the hopes you don't notice but you do, oh, you do). _But we were stuck here. In the Veil. And what's worse - what's_ worse _was that...um._

               

He's trying so hard, but he can't stop the tears rolling off his face onto the blankets in front of you. You want to stand up and hug him.

               

_We're separated. Permanently, as far as we know,_ he continues. _We each have our own section of the Veil to ourselves and we're stranded. We can't - we can't figure out how to reunite._

               

_...But Jade was here,_ you put in cautiously.

               

_It's the seasons. I can see the girls on the week of the equinox, when the seasons roll over, but Dave...I haven't seen Dave since..since a very long time ago. His section of the Veil is too far away from mine, I think. Too far away to merge, even for a little while, even when the seasons intermingle._ He makes a noise that might have been an attempt at a laugh. _No express route from winter to summer, I suppose._

               

_There's no way to reach them? Not at all?_ (you feel stupid for asking - he's been here so long, he's been alone for so long, he'd have found a way if there was one - but you feel you have to)

               

His shoulders have sagged. _Jade would make a path, if she could. That was what she_ did, _back in the game, but Space doesn't seem to work that way here. It behaves like dreamspace, in every way except the most important._

_The most important?_

_Our desires influencing reality - none of us can do that here, even with the help of alchemy. We're too...too solid?  We're too grounded to travel back and forth, even though the physics of the Veil say we should be able to. We just can't. Except on the days of the equinox, because the barriers are thinner during those days._ He sniffs audibly, and your chest constricts. _I miss them so much, Karkat._

He flips right side up and floats down to sit on the bed next to you. He puts his head on your shoulder and you freeze, feeling secondhand embarrassment at how vulnerable he is. You aren't supposed to see this, he's everything you were taught to fear and _he's_ the one who's afraid, this isn't how it's supposed to be.

               

But you can't do anything about it, so you let him prop himself on you and close his eyes, and you stay like that until the lights dim and he falls asleep, breathing as even and predictable as the tides.

 

He's so human, you can see it now, see it scrawled across his skin in vibrant colors - for the first time you can see why he's so unhappy, why he looks so old and it frightens you to see him like that)

               

(he's human he's _human_ )

               

He's so sad.

               

He's so _sad,_ and you get it, you get it, you truly do. You understand why he brought you here. You understand the nature of Jade's question, and you know now you couldn't leave him, even if you wanted to. It would break him (he's so fragile, you think, looking at his sleeping face. So very alone but trying so very hard - he was just like you once, he had a heart that aged him with every beat and had his feet planted as firmly on the ground as any of you)

               

(a nasty, tiny little voice in the back of your skull whispers that he was as grounded as any of _them,_ because _you_ aren't human, not really, but you tamp it down and make a list of all the ways he makes you believe you are, even just for a little while)

               

 

You run out of books by the time John begins to show semblance of his old self. He comes up behind you and you jump when he leans forward and rests his head in between your shoulder blades.

               

_Happens every time,_ he mutters into your shirt. _Don't know why - you'd think after all this time I'd be better at saying goodbye, right? And it's not - it's not like it's_ forever _, it's just a year._

               

_It's okay._ You tell him.

He goes boneless against your spine. _Thank you._

               

You stay like that for awhile. He sighs, and his voice is right in your ear. _I guess I ought to find you some more things to read, huh? You must be tired of having nothing to do._

               

(his eyes are a bruised color when you turn around)

               

_Give me a whole library and I'll stay as long as you like,_ you say, but you can't meet his bleary eyes, which ruins your attempt at lightheartedness.

               

He laughs a little (it hurts to hear, worming up from his throat like a wet cough). _That's a lot of books! Give me a few days or so and I'll see what I can come up with._

(the next morning there is a pile of books outside your door that comes up to your pelvis. You notice John smiling at you when he thinks you can't see him)

               

(he promises more books soon)

               

               

You start having bizarre dreams a few weeks after Jade leaves. At first, you merely wander up and down long white hallways, going in circles in a similar environment to what surrounds you daily, but as the nights progress you wander farther and farther into the maze. As you do, the space...changes. It's nothing tangible, nothing you can put your finger on, but it's a slow, seeping feeling as you travel further and further each night - a feeling that you're traveling farther and farther from John and closer towards something that will consume you and rewrite your existence. Something fated and unknowable. With each step you take, you are closer to becoming somebody different. You remain calm throughout, though, even though you feel you're slipping away  as smoothly and quietly as a gradient of white to black.

                               

(you wake up crying a few times and do your best to store your tears in the crook of your elbow)

 

Once, you dream that somebody is speaking to you, somebody with a quiet, scratchy voice who  says _hello? I know you're there_. _Who are you?_ You're surrounded by fog and can't see, and by the time you think to open your mouth to respond, you wake up breathing like you ran uphill with a basket of stones on your back.

               

John notices a change in you and inquires about it, staring into your face like your troubles are written across the pores of your eyelids and the bridge of your nose. You tell him you've been having trouble sleeping and he nods like he knows all about that sort of thing and alchemizes a mild tea and says, _try this. It's what I used to drink._

 

That night you dream you're standing in the center of a room with cascades of different colored paints making up the four walls around you. Paint - you're sure it's paint - oozes from an unseen source at the seam where each wall meets the ceiling, dripping sluggishly down towards the floor where the color pools and clumps up as it dries. There's a blue like John's eyes, a green like new growth, a purple like the inside of your eyelids in the dark, and a red like the blood running through your veins.  

               

_Hey!_ Comes through the red, hoarse and irritated. _Just what do you think you're doing?_

               

Something comes over you then, and you know - you _know,_ like you've always known but never paid attention to the knowledge - that the boy-man (he sounds young-old, like John) won't  hear you unless you go greet him in person. You _need_ to talk to him, you have to tell him something, something you forgot - but that's all right, you're dreaming, you'll remember it when you wake up - and when you charge at the red wall and pass through, you emerge into a brightness that washes over your bones like a wave.

 

               

_Have you been sleeping any better?_

_Not really. The tea helps, though._ You tell him, because he wants to hear that and you don't want to disappoint him. His face clears and his hands are warm around your forearms.

               

_I'm glad._

 

               

Every night you go to the multicolored room and sit in the center to listen. You hear John through the blue, more often than anyone else (he mutters to himself sometimes, hums and whistles and sings little tunes you've heard from him before), but on occasion the voice through the red wall makes enough noise to lap John by a mile (angry, angry, so frustrated and incredulous - _what is going_ on? he says) and eventually you gather up the courage to call out a quiet _hello?_ to him (though you know he won't hear you)

               

_Karkat? Karkat, where are you?_ John calls through the blue, and you're awake again, lying on your bed in the dark all by your lonesome. John is nowhere in your vicinity.

 

               

Two nights after that you wake sluggishly from a dreamless slumber to find John curled around you in a neat arc, a parenthesis that begins where his hair brushes your ear and ends at his toes that just barely graze your shin. He's exuding enough heat for at least two bodies, but he's shivering, lips moving as he dreams. He's mere centimeters away from the edge of the mattress - the slightest nudge would send him sprawling to the floor - and he looks very, very small.

               

You inch over to give him more room  and he shifts, following you like a magnet. When he's no longer in danger of rolling off and injuring himself, you turn your gaze to the ceiling and place your hands on your stomach. You doze on and off until morning, when you open your eyes to find yourself alone.  

               

               

John is silent for most of the day, stealing glances at you from his peripheral vision like he's trying to gauge how best to talk to you (like he thinks you're angry, like he thinks you're going to yell at him for coming to you when he needed you). It isn't until you sit down next to him and ask him when you will get to meet Rose that the cornered look drops from his eyes and he relaxes (and how he relaxes. Like he's falling into himself).

               

_Soon. Summer will be ending soon, so I expect Rose will show up within the next few days. She'll be coming here, because I doubt you would be able to make the trip. The open space of the Veil between us would...probably not be something your body would take kindly to._

You blink. Summer ending? _A few days? But I thought the equinox -_

               

_Time is odd here,_ is his explanation. _A full light to dark cycle here is the equivalent of a week out there, I believe. Or so Jade has passed on from Dave._

 

               

John begins crawling into your bed every night from then on. You're sure he purposely tries to wait until he thinks you're asleep to do so, but you never are. Every night the door will open as quietly as a summer breeze, and you'll hear his footsteps padding across the floor. You'll feel his warmth against your side and his sigh as it stirs your hair. He's always asleep in minutes.

               

John has nightmares.  On those nights, you lie a little closer to him than usual and take his hand when he thrashes and whimpers. When he dreams, you don't. On nights when he's still, curled up on his side, open and vulnerable, you slip back into the painted room. When that happens, there is no noise from the blue wall, just a peaceful silence.

               

               

You know that there is significance to your reoccurring dream-space, but you don't tell John because the closer the time comes to Rose arriving, heralding the end of fall, the more restless his sleep becomes. You want him to sleep easy, so every morning you tell yourself to wait a few more days to bring up how Dave (because of course behind the red wall is the boy-man-god of summer, of course it's him, how come you didn't realize it immediately?) is always, always talking these days, plastering incomplete sentences and half-formed ideas into your ears. You wait to tell him how Rose mutters and hums and speaks in many, many languages, and how Jade talks as though someone else is there, as though she is happy, when you can tell neither are true.

               

               

Sure enough, Rose shows one morning, sitting calmly at the table by herself with a mug of tea. _There you are_ , she says. _I was wondering when somebody would stir. I hope your presence has not influenced John to the dreadful habit of sleeping well past the start of the day. I have much to discuss. Please, have a seat. It's Karkat, yes?_

               

She's undeniably lovely, carrying herself with an ethereal air of self confidence. Her eyes are sharp, calculating. She is practically dripping with intelligence.

               

_That's right,_ you tell her, and sit across from her. _John has nightmares, so I let him sleep as long as he likes when he doesn't. Have them, I mean._

               

She nods. _He is not alone. Dave and myself have been experiencing similar troubles, and although Jade is reluctant to admit it I have it on good word that she has not had a moment's peace in some time. But you -_ you _have slept undisturbed in this space. Why might that be, I wonder?_

_Rose, you're not allowed to interrogate Karkat before you introduce yourself properly!_

John's hair is standing at a whole number of impossible angles. You watch the progression of Rose's eyes from his bare feet to his rumpled clothing to the sleep-flush still evident on his cheeks. She smiles, ad you shiver at the many layers of it.

               

_Goodness, where_ are _my manners. My name is Rose Strider-Lalonde. Of course I know_ you _, Karkat._ _Vantas is your surname, if memory serves? It is a pleasure to meet you at last. John, sit, please. Dave has much to tell you._

 

               

David Lalonde-Strider has indeed much to say. Rose speaks with a conversational tone, but it is clear she is reciting paragraphs from memory (her eyes have gone distant and her fingers lace and unlace with themselves, a rhythmic, hypnotic motion to watch). She tells you - tells John - that Dave has been kept up by a _disturbance of a sort he has not seen before - a twisting of Space-Time that suggests Breath, but of a different sort of disregard for interdimensional boundaries._

               

John is confused. _A different sort?  I noticed it too, but I didn't think...well, I didn't think much of it, really._

               

_It is as though,_ Rose says, _the source of the disturbance is Time, Space, and Breath rolled into one entity. It seems quite intent to rip holes in the Veil, beyond the abilities of Dave or even Jade to repair. At the rate it is going, it is entirely possible that it may gouge a hole large enough to cause the temporal energy to spill out and pollute our universe._

There is a deafening silence. You feel you ought to leave, this doesn't concern you (but it _does_ , something whispers, it has _everything_ to do with you), but getting up would draw their attention and John's eyes are blazing with something that frightens you. His back is as straight as an arrow, muscles drawn as tight as a bowstring. You don't dare say a word about your dream, now.

               

 

That evening, Rose touches eight fingers to John's temples and begins whispering strings of vowels under her breath. They stay like that for a long time, far after the lights dim to black, and that night John does not come to you. When you wake up in the room, barbed wire is strung from the ceiling in great nets and a giant moat has been dug that traps you  in the center, lined with glimmering knives jammed haphazardly into the dirt at the bottom (dirt! Actual dirt lines the bottom of the pits, and if you weren't wary of spilled blood you would reach down to touch it, to scoop up a handful and feel something organic for the first time since you got here). You are unable to move in any direction and resign yourself to revolving slowly on the spot, surveying the new additions. No voices seep from the walls, and you wake up crying into your pillow.

 

(you can't tell him now, you can't tell him anything now. If you tell him about your dreams he'll make you leave, you know he will)

 

(when you think about leaving, about the look of anger on John's face when you tell him it's _you_ , your lungs constrict and only the sharp pinch of your claws leaving angry marks on your wrists can distract you from the panic)

 

(you can't leave, but you will if it would ensure his safety. You'd wander through the void for as long as you live, if only it would keep him safe and give him pleasant dreams again)

 

(you're going to have to leave)


	5. Comprehension

Rose does not stay long. When she leaves, she pulls you aside and conjures your alchemiter into her palm. She hands it to you.

               

 _Take care of this as you would your life or John's._ Her face is hard, worried. _In the wrong hands, it could rip apart the very atoms of paradox space. Do you understand?_

 

You tell her of course, but it does not seem to relieve her anxiety any. She tells you again to look after it, to look after John, and for the next few days after she fades into the shadows you feel as though violet eyes are watching you at every turn, making the hairs on your forearms stand straight up.  

 

( _do you understand?_ She'd asked, and you had told her of course. You had seen her eyes narrow when she caught the lie, but she hadn't said another word)

 

               

Once again, John leaves you to your lonesome for quite some time after Rose's departure, but this time there are no tears or tantrums. When you happen across him one time, he's sitting perfectly still with his eyes closed, hands braced on his knees, whispering to himself. He hears you coming and stifles himself, but you catch him a second time and manage to get close enough to listen - he's conversing with somebody who you can't see.

               

 _It's a void, almost, except it's_ alive _, it's a tangible entity that's doing this but it's not malicious, it's, it's_ kind _and I don't know...precisely...in my dreams, yes...like a Player, like I'm on Prospit again..._

               

 _Who are you talking to?_  You can't resist asking.

               

 _The air,_ he responds.

_Oh._

               

He laughs a little (you smile reflexively). _No need to sound so judgmental. It has more to say than you might think. Breath was my Aspect, back in...back then._

_Aspect?_

_Mmm. There are - were, I suppose - twelve different Aspects in the Game. I was Breath. Rose was Light. Jade was Space, and Dave, ah, Dave was Time._

_What do they do?_

_Do? They, well they dictate a set of abilities._

You feel as though you're missing an important point. _You were born with them? The ability to, to talk to air, and -_

_No, no. The game gave me my Aspect, when I was born. I couldn't utilize it until I started playing. But if I had not played when I grew older, I would never have received my Aspect as an infant._ John sighs. _Dave would be much better at explaining this. This is his area of expertise._

 

 _I don't, I don't - wait, please, wait a minute._ You hold up your hands. Something is hammering at the back of your skull, something you don't understand but you _need_ to. Something you already know but don't. _What_ is _the game you played?_

_I don't know,_ he says, and he looks very small. _Nobody does._

_But you're a -_

_God?_ He has shadows under his eyes (has always had shadows under his eyes, why didn't you notice sooner?). _That doesn't mean a thing. We just played like we were supposed to. Every universe has and will have a Session, Karkat._ He stands up suddenly, startling you, and heads for the door, touching his hand to your shoulder as he walks by. _Every universe except yours._

 

You don't ask him what he meant, even after several days have gone by, because whenever you open your mouth with clarification on your mind his face clouds over like you've stirred up mud at the bottom of a puddle. He speaks in short, halting sentences to you for a little while, until you get the hint and stop thinking up dozens of different ways to phrase the same question. He isn't angry with you, though - still crawls into bed with you every night and clutches at your shirt when his dreams take him to bad places - and he knows that you know that. The silence he gives you is contemplative (for the both of you).

 

You have to do something. You have to do _something_ , you know you must. John is a dull-eyed ghost most days, will remain perfectly still and gaze unseeing at the walls, draped over this or that piece of furniture like a particularly detailed bit of home decor. His breaths are heavy on the exhale.

 

 _Karkat,_ he asks you eventually, _why haven't you left?_

 

You freeze. He isn't looking at you, though, so he doesn't see the guilt written all over your face. Does he know - ?

 

 _What do you mean?_  You are the wide-eyed innocent, book sprawled in your lap like a pet, hands clasped together.

 

 _You don't deserve this._ 'This' being a wide, sweeping gesture, elbow brushing against the surface of the big table. _This doesn't suit your existence._

_My existence?_  

 

 _This is no life._ He's slouched in the chair opposite you, and finally tilts his head to look at you from the corner of his eye. What little of you can see of his expression is anguished and chills you to see. _You are not the sort to exist in limbo, Karkat. Why are you still here?_

 

You have many reasons to choose from, but what slips from your lips as you grip the edges of your book is, _because you're lonely._

 

 _Because I'm - ! Oh, Gods._ John hides his face in one hand, turns his whole body away from you. Closes in on himself. _Please don't say that. Please, please._

 

 _I'm here because I want to be. I'm staying._ You tell him, because it is not a lie - you will stay until you have to leave. You tell yourself that a lie of omission is hardly a grievous sin.

 

His chest rises and falls in one short little jerk. _Don't do this for me, please. You can't stay here if it's only because of me._

_Why not?_

You think he might be crying, but you understand that he needs his illusion of composure. _I don't need_ company, _I didn't come here for my own benefit, don't you see, I did it for_ you _, I did it for all of you - !_ He breaks off. Stands up, still hiding his face. _I'm sorry. I need to -_

_I know._ You tell him, because you do. You know he needs to be alone so he can steady his breathing. _I'll wait here._

 

That only seems to upset him more, but he scurries out without another word. You stare at the print of your book until the text swims into a blurry mess before your retinas. You stay like that for a long time. John doesn't return.

 

 

When you sleep that night, the cruel blades and wire trapping you has eased, just a little. You can see chinks that you think you might be able to slip through surrounding John's wall, however. Is it because he is having trouble concentrating? You wonder what you might hear and experience if only the four were not so deadset on keeping you from eavesdropping upon them. You feel guilty about it, because they are _gods,_ they are entities of stardust and light that defy the imagination, and here you are wishing you could slip into their private lives under the illusion (delusion?) that you could make a difference in their existence.

 

But you don't try to pester John, don't give it more than a passing thought because you know what it's like to be overwhelmed and need time alone, you do, you do. But you need to speak to _someone_ or you'll burst like ripe fruit on a hot day. You need to _know_ but you know no one will tell you because you're the outsider, you're just the demon child scooped up from death at the last moment because John happened to be in the right place at the right time.

 

 

There is maybe one individual left who might give in to your questioning. Maybe.

 

You spend the evening as close to Dave's wall as you can. You want to meet him, want to see if you can pilfer information from his stores of knowledge - _this is his area of expertise,_ John had said, and you know precisely what you are going to ask him if you get the chance. His defenses look nearly impenetrable, though - much angrier, much more practiced and sure of its own lethality. Iron spikes dripping with poisons, sheets of rusted wire, blades as thin and deadly as razors embedded in every available surface - you would not be able to make three steps towards him without sustaining a mortal wound. And yet...

 

When you lean in as close as possible and whisper, _Dave?_ in a hushed, respectful tone, you are not expecting the immediate shudder of bone-crunching thunder to rip through you. It shoves you back, makes you splay your hands out behind you to catch yourself. When it repeats itself, you recognize words.

 

_WHO ARE YOU?_

 

 _I'm Karkat,_ you whisper. Wonder if your inner ears might be bleeding. _I need to speak with you._

 

_YOU ARE._

 

_Tell me about the Game, please._

There is a pregnant pause. A few of the blades seem to soften a little, to melt around the edges. When Dave speaks again, the volume is much more reasonable. Conversational.

 

_You're  John's little stray. The cult child._

_I am. I have questions._

_You and everyone else,_ he says. _Go away. I don't know what you're doing, but you shouldn't be able to speak to me._

_I know,_ you say. _That's why I'm here._

 

 _I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE._ He roars through to you. You flinch, try not to cower. Straighten your shoulders again because John cares for him. John isn't the sort to care for just anybody _._

 

_I will not._

He gives you no response, gives you nothing at all except a silence that drags over your bones like a fine-toothed saw. You manage to creep a step or two closer to the wall while he appears to be distracted. If you can just touch -

 

_The girls like you. Why is that?_

You think about that. _I'm a novelty, I suppose._

 

 _Is that so?_  

 

 _It is._ You cast your mind back frantically, trying to recall what John had said about him when you'd cocked your head to the side one day and asked, _what is David like?_

 

 _Oh, goodness,_ John had giggled. _Whatever you do, don't call him David. He despises that! It's what his family used to refer to him by, and only then whenever he was in trouble._

_His family?_

_Rose, of course, and his brother. Who was also his father, thanks to me._ John had scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. _He doesn't talk about his brother. He died, early on before things really got going. They, ah, they didn't get along. Of course, that doesn't mean Dave wasn't devastated when he died._

_But what is he_ like?

 

 _He's very intense. He cares very much and tries to hide it, because he cared very much for his brother, who used that against him. We all learned fairly quickly to let him keep on masking his emotions, you know?_ John gets a faraway look in his eyes and doesn't say anything else, even when you continue to pepper him with more questions _._

 

 _...Hello?_ Says Dave, quiet and unsure (lonely). _Are you still there?_

_I'm going to get you out,_ you tell him. _That's all I'm going to do, I promise._

_You really aren't,_ he says. His voice is monotonous but you remember John's words (remember, _'he cares very much and tries to hide it'_ ) and are able to listen to the undertones. _You'd be responsible for the death of everyone you ever knew if you did._

_Then tell me_ why _!_

 

There is a great pause that coagulates in your eardrums. You hear a sigh that ruffles a few strands of your hair.

 

_You had better come in, I suppose._

 

 

When you push through the red wall, it does not end in an explosion of pure light as it did last time. Instead, you press your palms flat against the cool surface and, like you are stepping through a gossamer curtain, emerge into a dimly lit space. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, so you stand there trying not to breathe as loudly as you feel you must be. The room swims into focus - you are in the doorway of a bedroom. Standing in the far corner, by the foot of the small mattress laying on the bare floor, is a boy-man barely taller than you are. His hair is white enough to appear to glow in the low light, and his eyes blaze with the same intense color as yours. You are rendered speechless, and stop in your tracks.

_Oh,_ says David Strider. _Oh, oh, no. You really will, won't you?_

 

 _What?_ You say, just barely (he looks very tired).

 

He sits down like you've taken a razor to the back of his knees.

 

 _What?_ You say again.

 

 _Karkat,_ he intones, very quietly, _how many friends did you have before you came here?_

What an odd question. Thinking back to then is like slogging through calf-deep snow. You close your eyes and count, extending your fingers one by one as faces pop into your mind.

 

_...Eleven._

Dave laughs, but it isn't a nice laugh. It sounds like a whine. _Rose said as much. A twelve player session._ He stands up, vaults over to you, puts his face up close to yours. He smells like old smoke. _He should have left you there._

_Should have -_

_He should have_ left _you there!_ He shouts, draws himself up and becomes even taller, forcing your head back to watch him while he rages. _Should have_ left _you there, don't you see? We came here for_ you, _for your whole damn planet and John just - John just -_

_John just what?_ You don't dare step back, don't want to step back. He collapses in on himself like a sinkhole.

 

_John threw away millennia of work to bring you here._

_Threw away? I don't - I don't understand._ You can't look away from him, can't even begin to imagine tearing your eyes away from the lightening behind his eyes.

 

 _It would have been all fine if he had left you there,_ he says again. His voice is as hoarse as you remember, you realize. Does he shout like this all the time? He sounds very much like you did as a child. _It would have been fine_.

 

 _I don't understand!_ You snap, and you think the harsh tone of your voice startles him. He blinks at you, sluggish and slow and not entirely present - you wonder what he is thinking about (know that he is thinking about John). _What is the Game?_

 

 _The Game,_ he says softly. Like he's dreaming (still thinking about John?) _Nobody knows._

_John told me that, he told me that you'd know more than -_

_The Game is a universal construct,_ he interrupts. _A fated series of events._

You can't help the way you rock forward, palms outstretched like your subconsciousness wants to take hold of him by the front of his shirt and keep him in front of you. _What is it_ for _?_

 

 _For?_ Dave looks at your hands, takes a step back (not before you see the flicker in his eyes, the same flicker that you saw in Jade's just before she flung her arms around you). _It is the reproductive process of Time and Space._

_What?_

Dave has a scar through his left eyebrow. It seems very old and faded, but it still manages to retain its distinct, hairless line (he's human, they're all human, they're all human beings and so very alone in their unique statuses as not-human-beings). You watch it quiver as his face darkens.

 

_It creates new Space-Time from old. The Game creates universes._

You think you understand what he means, but surely - but surely that would be impossible, how could such a thing - ?

 

Dave sees the expression you must be making, and sighs (and you feel guilty, you do, you ought to understand, you should be able to figure it out because something is hammering at the back of your skull, telling you everything you have ever wanted to know, but it's like you're hearing it shouted from the other side of a quarry, all distorted and echoing and entirely untranslatable). _If you think of the world you live in - the universe you live in - as your home, the house you grew up in, then the other worlds, the other universes that surround you, the other houses  - what are they? What would all of them, yours included, make up?_

_A...a town? A city?_ You have never been to a city. Your friends (which friends? You have forgotten which ones told you stories about the tall buildings and crowds of people they'd seen, and which ones read you books about them) would always tell you about the hordes of people, the bustling, busy streets, the rows and rows of houses and other structures that would stretch on as far as the eye could see.

 

_Exactly. The town you live in is the local cluster of universes, if you will. The neighborhood. Understand?_

_...I think so._

_If you follow that analogy, the Game is the authority figure who deems it necessary to demolish buildings when they are no longer useful to the community, and builds new ones on the foundations of the old._

_Then who -_

_There is no who. It just is._

 

_Then how -_

_Stay awhile?_ He interrupts. He's got shadows like puddles under his eyes and scabs on his lower lip in the shape of his top teeth. _John will be waiting for you, but it's not my policy to let someone rifle through my mind and intrude on my home without making them an official guest first._

 

_John will worry, though. He thinks I'm sleeping._

 

 _No he won't. Didn't he tell you?_ He grins, but it only halfway touches his eyes. _Distortion of Time is what I do best. Don't worry about how long you're here._

_I can't stay long,_ you still insist. His eyes shutter closed.

_I know,_ he says. _I know._ He sits down and pats the mattress. _Tell me what you're planning and I'll tell you about the Game._

 

 

Dave speaks much more than you do, given how insistent he was about you telling him your 'plans' first. He's like a pot boiling over - it's just words, words, flowing over and out into the airspace faster than you can comprehend them. You have barely mentioned John before he's off, tripping over himself in his haste to interrupt you with how, when John was a child (how many centuries ago was that? you want to ask, but can't find a gap in his syllables to wedge the question in), his father would bake for him every single day, which _was always a little odd but John's father was the nicest man you'd ever meet, we were all so broken up when - well, you know._

_Do I?_

_I think you do._ He looks you up and down, gaze lingering on your horns, your hands, what skin you've left exposed to the air. _You do, because that's what you are._

_What I am?_

He raises his hand towards you, just a little. _May I?_

You nod, unsure of what he is about to do but you trust him (you don't know why you trust him), and he extends his arm to cup a hand around one of your horns. Your whole body is enveloped in warmth from that simple touch. You can't do much but blink slowly until he removes his hand, and even then you still feel like you're floating while he settles back into his own space and folds his hands in his lap.

 

_Do you know why you have those?_

_What?_ Your tongue is thick in your mouth. You feel dizzy in an oddly pleasing way.

 

_You're a Player._

_A - ?_

_Your Aspect._

_My...? Like, Time and Space and - ?_

_You're Blood._ He says, and it sounds like he's looking at an oncoming storm. _You're Blood, that's why, that's why you look like you do, why you're here. It's the rarest._

_The rarest - why I look like - ?_ Your head spins, and you bring your own hands up to touch the protrusions on your skull. _How could that make me - make me like this?_

_Blood usually manifests with, with physical...mutations. Of sorts._

_Oh._

(all this time, _all this time_ , and for something like this - ?)

 

 _It was you all this time,_ he's saying, but you don't process it until he jumps up sudden enough to startle you. Your hands are fluttering back down to your lap while he tips his head back to regard the ceiling. _This is because of you. Of all the - of all the luck John has, he had to go and scoop up the_ one _Player who could -_

_What's because of me?_ (you know, you know)

 

 _This whole place._ He waves a hand out (a pale, fidgeting hand) at the air. _It's crumbling. Because you're Blood ._

_Is that what I do? What I - what am I?_ Is that it? Are you, do you, do you destroy everything you touch? Is that what Blood is, what your Aspect is? You think of your friends, of your community, of the face of the first person to throw a rock at you - is that what you are?

 

 _You're a magnet._ He whispers. _Blood will tear down interdimensional boundaries to get what it wants, and right now you're ripping apart the Veil because somehow you've got it into your head to let John out of here, and that's what's destroying everything._

_I'm -_ (that lines up with what you know, but what does it mean, what does it _mean?_ )

 

 _We're here - the four of us are here - for a_ reason _. It was a collective decision - we were all fine with it, we're still fine with it, it's what we had to do. And you just, just_ waltz _right in and start tearing it all down like you've decided to redecorate and -_

_I didn't mean to!_ You interrupt, because this is important. _I meant no disrespect, I just wanted to help -_

_That's Blood speaking,_ he says, and something happens to the air around you, like it's taken on the consistency of mud. It seems to take an extra heartbeat or two to achieve each passing second. _That's all that is._

_It's not_ all - _I'm not defined by something like that!_

_You are._ Dave looks like he's had this conversation before, like he's just reciting a script (can he do that? Can he rewind back through what he's said to edit the outcome? Does he know what you're going to say before you even say it?) _We all are. All Players are._

_I'm not!_

_I'm sorry._ Stilted, rehearsed. What is he thinking about? _We all reacted the same way, if that makes you feel any better._

You say nothing. He closes his eyes, stretches his shoulders. _I suppose this means you won't be staying long after all? Shame._

You feel bitter, and snap at him. _Can't you just travel forwards in time and figure that out without asking me?_ (you don't want to hear his casual pleasantries - you're just a construct of something you don't understand, is that what he's trying to tell you? That you can't fight it, can't do anything because in the end you'll always take the same path - is that it?)

 

_I have already, but to get to the future I saw, I had to phrase what I said the way I did. And for you to respond to what I am saying right now with -_

_Just tell me how to fix this,_ you say, and lean towards him. _Just tell me how to put you back in the real world - it wouldn't kill you, would it? To be back home?_

_It's not our_ home, he spits, and oh, you've made him angry, made his eyes burn like the driest of summer days, _it's not our home, it never was. We're here because we wanted you to enjoy_ your _home. We're in limbo so you don't have to be, don't you understand?_

_Oh_ (you think you do, you think you might be starting to understand, but why didn't he just _say_ \- ), _oh, you're here to prevent me from -_

_We all made the Veil together,_ he says, and deflates like a cresting wave. _The Game ends officially when the Players descend into their new world. That's when the cycle starts anew again. By staying here, your universe stays dormant. The Session doesn't activate because, to it, your universe isn't done yet. Because we aren't there._

_Which means I -_

_\- Won't have to play the Game. Ever. You'll live and you'll die a normal death and you'll go on to the dreambubbles left over for you and your universe will keep spinning in a void state for eons and eons until paradox space decides to eliminate it from existence because it didn't produce anything. We're sparing you._

_You -_

_We're_ sparing _you, all right? And you come in here disregarding all we did and you, you_ want _us to leave here, is that it? You think we'd be happy, that you'd make John happy if he could see the sun again, but you have to think of the long term!_

_But -_

_All of us, the four of us - we sat together and wove this place out of our own memories - John can't remember his father, Rose doesn't remember her mother, none of us -_ none of us _remember our families from before, because we gave up those memories to make this place! It's feeding off of us, feeding off of those things to keep it intact. Do you have any idea how long it took us?_

_I don't._

_It took us_ years _. We were working on it before the Game even ended, we were being tapped for energy_ long _before we created the Genesis Frog, so don't, don't -_

His breathing has picked up. Will he panic? You wouldn't know what to do if he does - Gods are supposed to be above anxiety, aren't they? And yet you know quite well the fragile stuff they are made of.

 

_Are you - ?_

_I'm fine._ He takes a few deep breaths. His exhales are fragile and shaking.  He won't look at you. _I'm fine, but I think...I think you need to leave._

_I need to - ?_

_Leave._

_I'm sorry, I didn't mean -_ (didn't mean to invalidate him, didn't mean to make him think that you're ungrateful, even though you aren't quite sure of the magnitude of what he claims he was saving you from - great enough to justify an eternity of loneliness and exile? Just how horrific _is_ the Game?) - _I just want to help._

 

He laughs, and it isn't pleasant to hear. _I know. That's Blood talking._

_But -_

_Just leave. Please. John will be waiting._

_But you said that you could -_

_I didn't. Not this time. John deserves to know where you went. What you want to do. Go on._

_But Dave -_

_I said to_ leave _!_ He shouts, and a wave of energy flings you backwards, makes you crash into the wall behind you with enough force to send sparks of light dancing across your eyes.

 

You struggle to stand. Your limbs are heavy and unresponsive, and your tongue seems to have dried to dust in your mouth. Dave is but a smear across your vision. He's walking away from you.

 

_Dave -_

_Tell John I said hello,_ he calls over his shoulder.   _And just remember that if you die, or if people you love die, it's your fault. If you try to tear a hole in the Veil, it'll all be your fault._

_Dave -_

The room morphs before your eyes. You're on your back, staring at a blank ceiling. You're very cold all of a sudden.

 

_Karkat?_

You almost don't recognize John's voice. It takes you one, two, four heartbeats to realize that the hoarse, whispered syllables come from the shadow by the edge of your bed.

 

 _Hm?_ Your mind feels as though it is vibrating, like the stuff between your ears will shake itself from your head and come flying out your ears. It's difficult to focus your eyes. Just rolling your head to the side to get a better look at him is a challenge.

_Gods._ And like that he's over you, crawling into your space and wrapping his arms around you and tucking his face into your shoulder. You jolt in surprise but cannot summon the strength to move so he isn't crushing you - he seems to realize this, because he rolls off you to the side, curling up next to you like always. _I was so worried, Karkat, you have no idea, you just, you just -_

You're beginning to feel the cold tendrils of anxiety in your sternum because of how sluggish you feel. John has buried his face into your side and his fingers shake with how hard they're gripping your shirt and you cannot summon the energy to feel anything more than mild surprise. You feel like you're dreaming.

 

_John, I saw -_

_A whole week, Karkat._ His voice is unstable. _Seven days and seven nights. You just laid there. Your eyes were open, you were unresponsive, I couldn't do anything, I thought that maybe - maybe -_

_I was with Dave._ You manage to mumble. His hands twitch, and he raises his head a fraction of an inch to look up at you.

 

_With - ?_

_He says hello._

_He says - Karkat, what were you_ doing _?_

_I'm going to get you all out of here,_ you try to say, but you fall into a coughing fit as soon as you finish and are unable to get out more than that. John sits up and pulls you with him, propping one hand on the back of your neck to keep you steady when you initially loll backwards. 

 

_You're going to what?_

_I'm going to make a new universe._ You whisper. _That's what the Game is, right? And I'll win, I know I will, and then I'll come back for you. You still be here once my universe disappears, won't you? Floating in the ether for eternity - I can come back and get you. It doesn't matter if you come into_ my _new universe, right? You'll be allowed in._

_Karkat, what are you talking about, that's -_

_You can't stop me._ Feeling is trickling back into your limbs like cold honey. _I'll just make a small hole, just enough to trigger the Game into thinking that you've come down into my world.  I know how to do that now, did you know? I'm Blood - I'm a Player, John. Dave told me. That's what the disturbance is, it's_ me.

_You're - Karkat. Please._ You don't want to look at John's face - his voice has gone airy-soft, like wind over a cold lake.

 

 _I'll play the Game and come back. I'll come_ back _for you, for all of you. You don't have to be alone, John._

_I'm_ not _!_ He cries, but you both can hear the lie. _Please don't go. The Game is hard, it's so hard, Karkat, it's designed to only be winnable by the very best and you, and you - I don't want you to die._

There is a pocket of warmth in your stomach. _I have a reason to win, so I will._

_What?_

_Trust me. Please. You've done so much for me, please let me do this for you._

He starts to cry. He starts to _cry_ and oh, it's the most horrific sight you've ever seen because he's so clearly just spilling over inside, he's trying to hide how lonely he is, but he can't. _You might die, and then where will I be?_

_I won't die._ You know you won't, you can feel it in your bones, in your blood, humming through you. _I won't - please trust me._

 

 _I do. I do, I do._ He says, and it sounds like he's tripping over himself in his haste to affirm it. He grips your wrists and just looks at you for a long time. You don't dare try to comprehend what's glittering behind his eyes. When he pulls you to your feet, his expression is dark and serious and unhappy, but you can see the resignation in him.

_If you're set on Playing, I want to give you this._ The alchemiter is in his palm - as you watch, it transforms, shrinking and changing shape. In seconds, a pendant lies in his palm on a thin gold chain - two curving blue lines stacked on top of each other. He pools it into your outstretched hand. _It should work the same, even outside of the Veil. You'll have quite a head start, already knowing how to do this._

You don't know what to say other than _thank you._ It feels woefully inadequate, but he seems satisfied with it. He steps back, shoves his hands in his pockets, won't look at you.

 

_If you think you might not be able to come back, that you might not be able to win after all, will you, will you let me know? I know you'll be able to, somehow, before it ends._

You nod, and slip the pendant over your neck. It isn't visible under your clothing, nestling against your breastbone and humming with warmth and energy.

 

 _Goodbye, John,_ you say, and place your hand on the wall beside you (it's so _obvious_ , so obvious now, how to push and pull at the space around you to move freely. You know just how to make a hole in John's space big enough to slip back into your own world and leave a bleeding wound in the Veil behind you)

 

He's still crying, but he smiles at you. _Goodbye._ His voice is barely audible. _Thank you._

_I'll be back for you,_ you promise again, just so he won't have nightmares about it (though you know he will, he will, he'll wake up weeping and confused and he'll call out for you and he won't have anyone to stroke his hair back). _How will I know when the Game starts?_

He actually laughs a little, to your immense relief (it's a good laugh, a surprised laugh, like his thoughts were interrupted at the best possible moment). _There will be no mistaking it._

_I_ will _come back._

_I trust you. Now go. Go on - make a new universe. Make sure there's room for us._ He's giving you a half smile that twists your insides to knots.

 

 _Goodbye._ You say again, and _push_. Your vision shimmers like the tear tracks on John's face, and the last thing you remember seeing later is his hand rising up to give you the tiniest wave imaginable.

 

 

You're falling.

 

You're falling, you're falling through blue and green and white, the wind is whistling in your ears, you can feel warmth washing through your bones from above - so _bright,_ when was the last time you greeted the sun? - and you don't have time to get your bearings before you slam into something equally hard and soft and -

 

You wake up.

 

The sun is shining above you. You smell green things and clean air. Grass tickles your palms when you fist your hands in the ground.

 

 _I'm back, everyone,_ you think, and lever yourself upright.

 

You're going to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter to go, and then the epilogue - which, depending on the length of it, might just be mashed together with the last chapter regardless. I can't give an exact estimate of when the last update will be out, since I'm going off to college in a few days, but this fic is my #1 priority and I'm giving myself until the end of the year to finish it.


	6. The Game

The sun is hot overhead. You forgot how it felt to have warmth seep into your muscles, how could you have forgotten? It feels like every good thing you've ever dreamed of. How long have you been gone? Does it even matter, with the universe about to conceive a new world?

 

You alchemize a wide strip of cloth to wrap around your head to cover your horns (you see no signs of life around you but it is better to be careful), you keep your hands curled so your claws are tucked into your palms, and as you walk along by yourself you practice speaking in short, brusque sentences to hide your teeth. Just in case.

You recognize where you have landed, thank goodness. You are several leagues out from your own home (your home no longer, though, you can barely remember how it felt to wake up on your mattress with the sun streaming in, can't remember how it felt to wake up in a colored and textured space). What-was-his-name, the boy with the funny eyes, he lives (lived?) closer to your present location than any other landmark in the vicinity.

 

_Sollux._ You realize, and immediately feel a dazed sort of guilt for forgetting his name, forgetting the thick spectacles that magnified his eyes to comically gigantic proportions. _How many others have I forgotten?_

 

You recognize the slope of the meadow you landed in, recognize the grove of trees that make a half-crescent around the edge that you're facing. His home (tall, thin, lots and lots of windows - some even had real glass) is less than an hour's walk from your location ( _was_ , was, what if he's vanished? What if you've been gone too long and they've all vanished?).

 

(is he still there? Have you been gone too long? What if - what if you are the only one left to play? Could you manage it, manage becoming a god on your own?)

 

(no)

 

(you'd try for John but in the end you wouldn't have the courage)

 

How long have you been gone?

 

Not so long, surely. Not so long they'll have faded from this world. Not so long that it's too late for you to participate.

 

Right?

 

 

It doesn't take you long to find Sollux's old house. Old house? Current house? You aren't sure if anyone (let alone him) lives within. The windows (unbroken, free of dirt) show no light glowing inside, and although the place seems structurally sound, the plants surrounding the area are completely overgrown. The front door is completely enveloped in vines and weeds and grass hide the slab of stone before the entrance almost completely (you remember that door, remembering being thrown into it as a tiny thing because you had come up behind Sollux and tapped him on the shoulder before he knew you were there). It looks like it hasn't been opened in years.

 

You knock four times, twice. Listening as closely as you can reveals no hint of movement inside. You knock again, louder. Nothing.

 

You know how to get in, regardless. There is (was?) a way to scale up the siding on the back of the building and carefully pull yourself up to the center window on the uppermost floor. You had only done it once, when you had been caught bathing in the stream behind your ramshackle dwelling by a drunk hunter who had pursued you for several miles, shouting slurred obscenities at your back. It had been early morning, and Sollux was still sleeping and would not come to the door no matter how much you hammered and yelled, so you had burst through his bedroom window instead to wait.

 

(Sollux had been awake after all, you had found, curled up in the corner of his room with his hands over his ears, crying softly and shaking so hard you could hear the click-click-click of his teeth from ten feet away.)

 

(he got like that sometimes. Sometimes he'd drop to the floor and go stormy-eyed and cy when you spoke too loudly and attack you if you touched him. He never told you much, but from what you pieced together after witnessing several of his episodes, you gathered that sometimes he heard people whispering to him, warning him of how everyone he cared about was going to die, and when.)

 

(you never really knew what to think of that. You and Aradia were the only ones who knew, and Aradia was much stranger about it than you were. Kept rattling on about how he was psychic, that it was okay, he was normal, just waiting to be chosen for an unspecified cause)

 

(you think now you know what that cause might be)

 

The siding is worn but free of rot and extreme damage. You climb it with little effort, and peer through the window. You see nothing.

 

Which is strange, because you see _nothing._ Although the glass is clear, you can only see a few traces of yourself reflected when you turn your head about. The room beyond is a void.

 

You try the sash. The window is locked, but just as you come to this realization, the pendant hums to life. The window is open. There is still nothing beyond. You pull yourself through. Your foot catches on the sill and you lose your balance, tumbling forward.

 

Your head cracks against a wood floor and you sprawl ungracefully, ears ringing. You lay there for a moment, trying to clear the lights from your eyes.

 

_Get up,_ snaps a voice in your ear. You jerk, and your hands fly to your head instinctively. The cloth around your head is still in place. You relax. _Get up, and do it slowly._

 

You get up slowly. The cloth slips a little and falls down over your face. That's all right. You know who it is. His voice is the same (quiet, intense, hoarse).

 

_Hello, Sollux_. You whisper. Somewhere in front of you there is a sharp, startled noise. A hand comes into your field of vision (close-clipped nails, chewed cuticles) and hovers there.

 

_Are you -_

  
_How long has it been?_ You ask. Still feel oddly peaceful, though somewhere  deep inside you know you should be alternating between anxiety, fear, and joy. _How many years?_

 

_Are you really -_

 

The hand pulls your covering away. You blink in the light. Sollux is a blurry shape in front of you, and he doesn't swim into focus until after he speaks.

 

_You died._

 

_I didn't._

 

_You died_ , he says, and oh, he looks so different. The whole structure of his face has changed since you last saw him, screams, " _I am a force to be reckoned with_ ," tells you to back away and hope he doesn't notice you. _We all heard the report._

 

_That I died?_

 

_That you were consumed._ He leans over to you those final inches. You have always known him to be a highly tactile individual, so grounded in what he can touch and manipulate in his environment, but you still flinch in surprise when he lays a hand on your hair, on your horns, on your temple. _You were eaten_.

 

You're curious (about everything - you've finally looked at your surroundings and this is his old bedroom, all right, but it's now full of wires and cables and computers and other technological things you don't understand. What sort of illusion did you dispel when you came in here?). _By what?_

 

( _what did they say? how did they explain me away?)_

He just touches you for a while longer, letting his palm rest against your skin. Should you feel happy to see him? You do, you do, but it's muted, like remembering a pleasant dream you had when you were a child.

 

_The Winter God. He - they all saw him._

_Sollux -_

 

_I wasn't there,_ he interrupts, and he's speaking faster and faster now, like this has been clammed up inside of him for years (how many years?). _I wasn't there but Terezi was nearby and she said she heard...she heard this, this_ awful _noise, said it was like someone had unleashed the horrorterrors of the Rings up on top of the mountain. She came back to me half-dead. Bruised and disoriented - you know how she depends on her hearing, right? She couldn't hear a thing for two days. And she wasn't even there, she was at least half a mile away._

 

_Sollux - !_

 

(Terezi went deaf? What noise, what noise is he talking about, it was as quiet as a blizzard when he, when John - )

 

_They're all dead. Karkat, they're all dead._

 

Terror pulses in your lungs. _Who are you talking -_

 

_The people who brought you up the mountain? The town officials? They're all dead._

 

_Since when?_

 

_Since_ then _!_ He spits, and he sounds so angry.

 

_(No, that's wrong,_ you think. _He's scared. He's very, very scared)_

_(Of me?)_

_I was with Aradia when they came back,_ he continues. He pulls back from you, pulls his limbs back into his own space. _They all came back single file, staring straight ahead like puppets do. They weren't blinking. Their ears were bleeding. They came back, they came all the way back to the center of town and stood there until we all crept close, and then -_

 

_(John wouldn't - he wouldn't - did he kill...?)_

_They told us what happened._  Sollux says. His eyes are glazed over as he looks inward at the memory. _All in the same breath, in unison, in the same monotonous voice. They told us what happened._

 

You are beginning to feel frightened. Nothing happened, _nothing_ happened, you were with John the whole time!

 

_What happened?_ You croak out.

 

Sollux looks at you, actually _looks_ at you properly, and it takes your breath away. _They summoned the Winter God to, to...exchange you. He came, and...and he bent over you, and, I think pulled your eyes open? You must have been unconscious, then, and he just looked at you for a long time. Nobody knew what to do. Someone tried to leave the area but it caught...his attention, and he laid you back down on the snow and just...yelled._

 

_Yelled?_ You aren't sure you heard that correctly.

 

Sollux is very pale. _He yelled. It deafened Terezi, as far away as she was. He was giving us a message. The officials, they heard it clearly. They passed it along to us. He said..._

 

_What did he say?_

 

_He said,_ 'he's mine now _._ '

 

_And then?_ Sollux is chewing on his lip.

 

_They said after that you melted. Just turned to mist, and the god, he, he breathed you in. And then..._

 

_And  then?_

 

_And then they died. They were done speaking and they all died._

_Oh._

_You look the same,_ he whispers. _You look exactly the same._

You can't look the same as you did, it's been years, if you were still physically the same as when you left Sollux would tower over you, but he doesn't, he looks you square in the eye. _No, surely -_

_You're taller but you're the same._

_I don't understand._

_It's been five years,_ he says ( _only five?_ you think). _You're wearing the same clothes. You've got the, the same bruise on your arm that you had before you left, you - but you've_ grown, _what happened to you?_

_I was taken in,_ you say (can't think of a better word for it, who did John think you would be to him, in the beginning?).

 

_By_ whom?

 

_By the gods._

_And you're back_ now _because...?_

(you think he knows the answer, can see it in the movement of his eyes, he knows you're back for the same purpose his voices whisper about)

 

_Because we have to play a game._

(he knows, because his whole frame curves in on itself, then, he collapses inwards and wraps his arms around himself because he _knows,_ he knows, he's learned all about the Game while you were gone,  how many times did he hear his future whispered in his ear while he cried and shook?)

 

Sollux is quiet for a moment (a long moment, staring at your face like he can interpret the electrical impulses in your brain). He unfolds himself, adjusts his glasses (they haven't changed, they're the same pair as he's always had, how did he keep them in such pristine condition while you were gone?), and says, _I'll let everyone know._

It takes six days for your friends to trickle in, one by one (Sollux refused to make the front door useable again, so you'd alchemized a new entrance that you could lock with a touch, so everyone else would not have to shimmy up the siding as you did). Sollux does not speak to you much for the first two days, choosing to spend his time hunched in front of computers, typing long strings of text that you don't understand.

 

Terezi arrives at the end of the second day. You are able to feel, somehow, her touch on the door and you rush to open it. She is a head shorter than you, wearing the same glasses (the _same_ glasses, you can see the small scratch in the corner of the left lens that you put there when you tripped her by accident) and looking very grim.

 

_Good of you to come back, sir Vantas._ She pats your shoulder as she elbows past you. _I was wondering when you'd finally show up._

 

Wondering? You almost reach out to catch her as she walks by, intending to ask how she could have known, how could she have possibly _known_ with a situation like yours? But as your hand brushes the fabric of her shirt, something deep inside you whispers, _Seer, Seer, she's a Seer,_ and you drop your hand like you've been burned.

 

_She's a Seer. She knows. How much does she know?_

_Sollux my good man!_ You hear her shouting down the hall. _Sollux, come give the blind woman a hug!_

 

Tavros, Kanaya, Nepeta, and Equius arrive on the fourth day. None of them are surprised to see you (Sollux must have told them), but all seem _relieved_ to see you (albeit for strange reasons - they all give you a once-over, each of them meeting your eyes in turn, and looking away with a satisfied expression at the same time you feel some indescribable tug of acknowledgement deep in your mind). Kanaya touches your arm and brings her other hand up to trace the slight curve of your horn.

 

_We missed you,_ she says, and you have to slip away to an empty room and breathe slowly for a few moments to chase away the tears that prick at your eyes. When you return, she smiles at you in understanding.

 

Eridan, Feferi, and Vriska arrive on the morning of the fifth day. Feferi and Vriska bounce into your personal space and touch you all over while talking simultaneously and you have to duck away because your brain starts to vibrate with overstimulation. When you emerge from the empty room again, Eridan is there. He looks at you intently and you can tell that he wants to say something to you, but after a few seconds he just cocks his head back down the hall and you follow him back in to Sollux's room, which the group claimed as a communal space (much to Sollux's chagrin).

 

Gamzee arrives on the sixth day. When you open the door and meet his eyes you very nearly shrink back - something behind them makes black spots appear in your vision, causes guilt to creep through your mind, causes a voice that isn't yours to poke about your memories and comment on the saddest ones. You blink, and the spell is gone.

 

_Hey, brother,_ he says, voice as soft as dandelion fluff. _Missed you._

 

(when you hug him his fingers dig into your sides hard enough to bruise, but you don't bother to tell him).

 

Aradia doesn't show. Nobody acknowledges her absence. When you ask, Sollux looks down at the dust streaks on the floorboards.

 

_She died._

_When?_

 

(how come they didn't tell you?)

 

_Shortly after you...left._

_How?_

_We don't know. She just disappeared one day. We found her body a week later. I still talk to her, though._

_Your...the voices?_

He nods sharply. _She gives me advice in exchange for the use of my body, sometimes._

_Sometimes?_

_Once and a while._ Sollux shrugs and abruptly seems so different from the boy you knew, the boy who screamed and thrashed when the voices he heard asked to borrow his eyes, his ears, his hands, just for a little while, _just for a little while,_ they always said.

 

_So how can we play?_ You ask, remembering what Dave had said. _We're only eleven._

_We're twelve._ Sollux taps the side of his head. _She's in here, waiting. The Game will give her a new body. She's told me. The group is still whole._ He lifts his chin. _Now that you're here, that is._

 

Night falls. The group gathers around Sollux's computer. Aradia speaks through Sollux (the lilt of his voice changes to accommodate her, rising and falling peacefully in musical breaths) and says _it's time, it's time, go outside, quickly._

 

You all go outside.

 

The sky falls.

 

You ascend.

 

 

Aradia is there to introduce you to the cold infinity of open space. She tells you how to play, says that your game will be faster because of the pendant from John. The curve of her horns catches the faint shimmer of starlight, and you understand why Sollux thinks about her with his eyes so soft and fragile. She tells you how to play, and you do.

 

You think you begin to understand why John chose to seal himself away when he did. As the events unfold, it becomes clear that you are merely the smallest tooth to the smallest gear in the most infinitely large machine that is the space-time continuum, and it's frightening. You are so very small and insignificant that it is hard to believe you could possibly succeed at something as incredible as creating a whole other universe.

 

(you're going to do it, though, you _have_ to do it)

 

(John is so very lonely)

 

 

You are the first to be injured. You aren't paying attention when you should have been, are caught by surprise, and thus are forced to look down at the blade emerging from your chest in shock while your friends dash around you and babble so fast you can't understand them. Someone picks you up and it _hurts,_ it hurts so much your vision blurs and goes black. When your eyes open again you are lying on a cold, hard surface, gazing up at a sky you can't see, you can't _see,_ your vision is too blurry to see anything and it _hurts,_ everything hurts and your mind is slipping away from you like the sun over the horizon. People are talking to you, holding your hand, telling you not to worry, that you'll be fine but you're dying, you're _dying,_ you promised John you wouldn't die and you failed him.

 

You failed him.

 

_John,_ John, _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it hurts, John, I'm so sorry -_

 

Someone squeezes your hand. It becomes harder and harder to think, until you feel a tugging sensation in your chest, like you're being pulled upwards.

 

You die.

 

You ascend.

 

You are reborn.

 

 

Aradia laughs with a strange glee when you finish wheezing on the ground, tells you that you're a god now, you're the first to become a god, aren't you excited? _The Game will be exponentially easier with a god-tiered Blood player, Karkat. You should be proud of yourself._

 

You aren't sure if you can bear to be proud of yourself. You remember death, remember the pain and the fear and feel _relieved,_ certainly, you're relieved that you're breathing and thinking and an entity in the cosmos still, but you don't think you can be proud of yourself. You don't tell anyone else that, though, and choose to stand there smiling as best you're able while your friends cheer and pat you on the back.

 

Playing does get easier. Things just make more _sense_ to you, you feel like you understand your place in the universe better. Your progress doubles, then quadruples when Aradia, Terezi, and Sollux ascend. By the time the last member of your group has died and been born anew, the end is in sight. The Genesis Frog is ready to be deployed. You are all standing in a ring hold your breath, not quite able to believe that you could be just one action away from the finish line.

 

Bbut something is missing.

 

_What is missing?_ Asks Kanaya. Her god-tier uniform is as black as the space around you yet seems to amplify the starlight tenfold.

 

_The people who took me in,_ you say, and close your eyes. You hadn't allowed yourself to believe that you would get to this point, where you could finally - _finally_  - cast your mind out among the stars to find a weak place in the fabric to slip through. You find one, and tell your friends to wait for you.

 

_I'm coming, John,_ you whisper aloud, and feel the pendant on your chest grow warm in response. Space twists before your outstretched palms. _Bring me to John,_ you command, and you fall through the cracks.

 

 

You open your eyes to the main room with the table. Your books are exactly as you left them. A single lamp is lit, flinging shadows this way and that. You relax, comforted by the familiarity of it all.

 

_John?_ You call out, not too loudly in case he is sleeping. _John, are you here?_  You alchemize a brighter lamp and set it on the table. You freeze.

 

The room has been destroyed. Debris - broken bits of furniture, pieces of torn cloth, and shattered glass litter the floor. Deep gouges have been carved into the walls, and there are strangely-shaped holes in the floor that glimmer with an artificial, frightening light.

 

_John?_ You move through the mess to the next room. It is in the same condition, with the exception of things you left behind. Books, the positioning of chairs and lamps and tables that you had arranged just so, those have not been changed, but the environment around them has been torn to shreds. _John, answer me!_

 

There is a sound from another room - _your_ room, your old room. A rustle of cloth, an intake of breath. The door is closed, but you slip through the wood as though it was nothing.

 

Your room is the same as when you had left. Except -

 

No, there is one difference.

 

A worn, dusty pile of blankets is bundled in the corner. You see a bare foot peeking out from underneath. The fabric rises and falls in a slow rhythm.

 

_He's alive, he's still here,_ you think, and rush forward. You pull the blankets back and there he is, blinking up at you with the same sleep-drunk expression, eyes cloudy as he rolls onto his back to face you fully, opening his mouth to say -

 

_Who are you?_

 

(what?)

 

_What? It's me, I came back for you, I'm here, let's go - I did it! I made a new universe, it's ready for you, you don't have to be here anymore._

He sits up. His eyes are still cloudy - not with sleep, you suddenly realize, but with confusion.

 

_How did you get here? What are you?_ His eyes flick up to your horns. _What_ are _you?_

No.

_No, no, no, John,_ you cry, and seize his face in both hands. He flinches but doesn't struggle. _John, it's me!_

_You say 'me' but I don't know who that is,_ he says very slowly, like you're a simpleton. Something cracks a little in your chest.

 

_DAVE!_ You shout, and fling your hands to the side. There is a horrific ripping noise, like you are pulling skin apart, and Dave tumbles through the ceiling into your space with a surprised cry. He crumples to the floor and remains there, breathing rapidly, until you call his name again. _Dave._

His head snaps up. His pupils contract when his eyes light upon you.

_Dave, do you remember me?_

His throat works. _'Course I do._

_Then why doesn't John?_ You demand, hauling John upright. He's sleep-warm and smells like clean skin, but he resists when you try to pull him closer to you.

 

John's eyes dart around. _Dave, how do you know - ?_

Dave stands (shakily). _This whole place was collapsing. You were taking too long, or maybe you began with a timer that was shortened, I don't know, I couldn't see into your Session, but this place started crumbling and we needed to make repairs._

_And?_ You don't understand. John is subtly trying to tug himself away from you. Something flares up in you, then, and with a twitch of your hand the air bends and Jade and Rose go sprawling on the floor at Dave's feet. John starts, twists his head to look at you in awe (feared awe, John is afraid of you, afraid of _you_ , he's so much more powerful than you, he could have stopped you by now, killed you, even, but he hasn't, he just stands there twitching his arm and shifting his weight, so _why -_ )

 

_Ah, Karkat,_ Rose says. She stands up gracefully and dusts herself off. _I had my suspicions when we heard that you'd died. I'm pleased they were correct._

 

(died? How did she hear...?)

 

Jade is quiet, eyes darting from your face to where your hand is gripping John's arm. She gives you a little smile (a sad smile, why is it sad?) when she catches you looking.

 

_Why doesn't he remember me?_ You ask again. You _three do._

Rose blinks at you slowly. _The Veil as we know it was slowly crumbling, due to prolonged existence in a universe that, after you left, ceased to exist. We would have been sucked out into the void and turned to dust had we not made the repairs we did._

_What_ repairs, _I don't understand -_

_Memories, Karkat,_ Jade said softly. _This place is built out of memories, and we needed more to fix it._

_After he heard you calling for him, John assumed you'd died._ Dave shoved his hands into his pockets. _He assumed that since you had both Time, Mind,_ and _Doom players you'd have figured out what god-tier meant, so you wouldn't be taken by surprise._

_Oh._ Deep in the pit of your stomach, you feel a ball of ice begin to form. _Oh, so he..._

_We needed a strong memory to patch the damage. John was in pain, he, his section was crumbling the fastest, so he offered up his memories of you._ Jade murmurs, and now you understand why she looks so sad.

John is looking very confused, so much so that he doesn't struggle when you tug him a few inches closer. You open and close your mouth a few times, and eventually manage, _I'm still getting you out of here._

 

Rose clasps her hands. _Excellent. If you would be so kind as to open the portal to my space again, there are a few things I would like to bring with me. It will only be a moment._

_Oh! Me too, please. Dave, you'd like to bring your music with you, wouldn't you?_ Says Jade.

 

(you wonder if maybe this whole situation is a dream)

 

(where will you be, if and when you wake up? Back on your old mattress with your guardian, or next to John on the bed a few feet away?)

 

A nod is your cue, and you stretch space for them but don't close the tears behind them after they step through. John pulls away from you.

 

_Where are you taking us?_

_Home,_ you tell him. _I've made you a new home. You don't have to be alone anymore._

He blinks a few times. Doesn't look like he fully comprehends, but shuffles away from you, muttering about bringing a few things along as well.

 

(will he remember, when he gets out of this horrible nothingspace? Will the Veil disappear and give his memories back to him once you've freed him from here?)

 

(if the Veil is using his memories to remain intact, what will happen to them when they are no longer useful?)

 

Dave returns first, carrying a small computer and nothing else. Jade, in contrast, emerges with two bulging bags (full of notebooks, you discover when one slips out, notebooks full of handwriting).

 

_You're not bringing...?_ Jade jerks her head at the portal to Dave's space. Dave scowls, and oh, there is millennia of anger and pain in that expression.

 

_I don't want to see it ever again._

 

Rose returns (you sigh and close all the portals again, relaxing as the pressure inside your mind eases), carrying a set of knitting needles.

 

_That's it?_ You can't help but ask. You had somehow assumed that she would bring the most. She gives you a teasing smile, and something gives you the impression that there is much more to the needles than you could possibly imagine.

 

You hear John banging around in the other room (he doesn't fly anymore? Doesn't let his fingers skim the ceiling as he goes, stretching his legs out in front of him? He walks like you do?), and it takes several minutes before he emerges, carrying three books and a stuffed rabbit ( _the_ stuffed rabbit, the one you saw in his room before with the hammer).

 

(the books are the ones you used to read the most)

 

_Why aren't you bringing the hammer?_ You ask.

 

He starts, fumbles and nearly drops what he's carrying. _Too many bad memories,_ he says, and you understand.

 

_Ready?_ You ask, and they all nod, one by one. John keeps looking around in confusion and you feel bad for him, you truly do, he has no idea who you are or what you are about to do and he's going to be scared.

 

You hope his memories return.

 

You take their outstretched hands in both of yours, and think of home.

 


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took six months to finish. Yeah. Sorry about that. I now know why they tell first-year college students not to take 20 credits their first semester. #lessonlearned
> 
> Enjoy!

When John turns to look at you after seeing the Genesis Frog still contained within Kanaya's grasp, he still does not remember you.

 

_You're a Player? How in the world did you..._

_Hush, John._ Rose takes his hand. _Just watch._

 

Kanaya releases the frog. You become the center of creation, and watch new stars bloom into existence around you.

 

Life unfolds around you.

 

The whole process takes at least a week. Everyone, for the most part, sleeps as much as they can, knowing that they are no longer needed. Dave and Rose sit quietly together and watch the entire time, from beginning to end. You don't ever see them so much as move until it's over. Jade sleeps with your friends, curled up between Tavros and Terezi.

 

John paces the length of the space you're in, talking to the air, pleading for information about anything, about everything, about you and your Game and why was his memory of you so strong and _what_ exactly _was_ his memory of you? You don't think the air is willing to answer him (maybe it _can't_ answer him), because John's frustrated expression doesn't change, and he continues to watch you out of the corners of his eyes like you are something strange and unknowable.

 

A world appears in front of your eyes, blue and green and gray and black and you are breathless at the simultaneous familiar and alien nature of it.

 

Kanaya takes your hand, reaches over to grasp Jade's as well. _Are we ready?_

 

_Everyone_ takes hands. Terezi takes your left hand, and a warm touch on your right reveals that John has sidled up to you, entwining his fingers in yours without looking at you.

 

(he still doesn't remember you, but maybe he remembers something _about_ you? The books and how you'd arranged the furniture and - )

 

_Ready,_ you say, and you descend.

 

 

The sun is warm on your back. The wind is blowing, and you can hear birds chirping in the trees that surround you. You open your eyes.

 

The others have gotten up already and are exploring the area. You're in a meadow that looks very familiar, that has the same crescent-shaped grove of trees near you. Your friends are exclaiming over their victory, tromping around the place as though it is their kingdom (and maybe it is, maybe it's all of yours). Dave, Jade, and Rose are lying on their backs a small distance away from you, gazing up at the blue sky. You think you see tears tracing their way down Jade's cheeks.

 

John is beside you, and has yet to wake up.

 

_Go ahead,_ Jade calls over. _He needs to see this._

You touch his arm, gently at first, then more firmly. He does little more than scrunch up his face and roll over, away from you. You shake his shoulder. _John,_ you whisper, _John, wake up_.

 

_Go'way Karkat,_ he moans, and the ice in you is melted by the sunshine.

 

_John._

_What?_ His eyes finally open. He takes in the grass before him, then sits up with a gasp, his back to you. _What..._

_We're here._

He turns around, looks at you then at Dave, Jade, and Rose behind you. His eyes are so very blue.

 

_Karkat, you -_

_I didn't die,_ you tell him. He leans into your touch when you grasp his upper arms. _I didn't die, it was god-tier, I didn't know about it, I'm so sorry -_

John's eyes are slowly filling with tears. _It's okay,_ he says, and you're suddenly struck by how different his voice is here, how much clearer and strong. _It's okay._

_I'm sorry._

He leans forward. You almost flinch back, but are shocked into silence when his lips touch your forehead (so soft, so, so soft). _Thank you._

He pulls back slowly, smiling like he's made of warmth and good things inside that are struggling to get out. He takes your hand in his, pulls you to your feet, and the two of you join the rest, feeling the sun in your bones and fresh air in your lungs as you set out to live - really, truly _live_ \- once more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with me through the thick and thin (and sporadic updating). It means the world <3 I hope you had as much fun reading this story as I had writing it! 
> 
> ~ Z


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